Month: January 2017

CEF has funded multiple projects in Cambodia that have had a lasting, meaningful, positive impact on the people and their communities. We are pleased to announce the completion of yet another successful project!

Partnering with Kids International Development Society (K.I.D.S.), CEF is proud to have funded a project to provide sanitary washrooms to the Feeding Dreams Cambodia School.

Feeding Dreams is a grass roots organization that provides free English and computer classes along with a Vocational Hospitality Training program to children and youth who live in the slum areas of Siem Reap city in Cambodia. This organization works closely with K.I.D.S. and helps over 800 children and youth and their families.

The school has been quite successful, with many of the students gaining invaluable skills and going on to find secure employment. The one issue was a lack of washrooms. The washrooms were located right beside the drinking water system, causing many hygiene and health issues. Often times the washrooms were not even usable due to water problems. Setting their sights on building four new washrooms with more privacy, further away from the drinking water system, K.I.D.S. approached CEF.

Now completed, we are happy to report that the school has 4 new sanitary, hygienic washrooms! Utilizing the skills of a local carpenter and his team, this project also helped create more employment opportunities for local residents. Clean, sanitary washrooms are something we can take for granted here, but in small rural places such as Siem Reap, it is highly valued. The children are so happy to have this new facility, as can be seen by their smiling faces! K.I.D.S. opened the new washrooms just last week and here is an excerpt from their experience:

“It was a very happy group that we met with today and it was wonderful to see the kids having a clean, private and decent washroom area. As we said before the Cambodian’s often laugh and call the bathroom the Happy Room, hence the happy faces in the pictures.”

CEF is happy to support such amazing grass root causes. Through this project we are able to help support the successful delivery of educational programs for children and youth in Cambodia and lead to a sustainable cycle of education and employment. A big shout out to K.I.D.S. and Feeding Dreams for helping to make this project a reality!

For many years before I was involved in Compassionate Eye Foundation, I was a labour lawyer in both Alberta and British Columbia. Starting in 1980, I worked in this profession and got to know many other lawyers doing similar work. One name I learned early in my work life was John Baigent. John was a renowned figure in the labour law field and in the labour movement, creating an impressive reputation as the leading practitioner in Western Canada.

I never ran across John on a case, however, as shortly after I moved to Vancouver in 1990, John moved to Enderby B.C. to carry on his practice and to fly fish. He moved there because he could—his clients would seek him out.

Eventually, John stopped practicing and returned to his true love—Africa and community development in Ethiopia. John had a vision of building schools, footbridges, and wells and generally helping people in rural Ethiopia improve their lives. John started Partners in the Horn of Africa and, through his sheer force of nature and persistence, turned it into a $1 million per year organization that changed the lives of Ethiopians, particularly young girls and young women.

John cajoled and persuaded dozens of his former compatriots and adversaries to donate thousands and thousands of dollars to his cause and John was the volunteer Executive Director for the first 12 years at Partners in the Horn of Africa. He travelled to Ethiopia at least once a year to meet communities and oversee operations, then would come home and personally raise the funds for the projects he had promised to the locals.

I got to know John when I became a monthly donor to Partners in the Horn, and was inspired by his energy and passion. He was clearly my inspiration to get involved in the Compassionate Eye Foundation. I could see through his example that my skill set could be useful in helping others in faraway places.

After I joined the Board of CEF, I introduced Partners in the Horn to CEF and, after the Board vetted the organization, we commenced to fund projects with them starting with a school in 2011. It has been a truly wonderful partnership as we have funded for a number of years a program that allows AIDS orphans to go to school. One of the great weeks of my life was spent with other Directors of CEF travelling in Ethiopia with John and Yehalem (the country director for Partners at the time). We saw the change work close up. It was amazing.

John announced a couple of years ago he was going to step aside as Executive Director. That was a difficult transition for the organization. Partners announced last year it was going to stop operating. I remember when John phoned me to tell me. I was very sad but he was clear eyed that it was time—Partners had run its course. I saw John at the 2016 AGM and he was comfortable with the decision. I didn’t know then that he would die 6 months later after a lengthy illness.

I was meeting the week before he died with a former member of the Partners’ Board. We were talking about John and this fellow said “no one I know has done more for poor people than John Baigent.” I totally agree.

A Celebration of John’s life will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 4, 2017 at the Riverside Community Hall on Trinity Valley Road, 10 km east of Enderby.

Partners in the Horn of Africa celebrated John’s achievements in its December 17 blog, and included John’s obituary.